AN Afghanistan veteran took her seven-year-old daughter on a heroin smuggling trip to mainland Europe in a bid to trick customs officers into believing they had been to Disneyland.

Naomi Thriepland tried to smuggle drugs into the UK using her daughter as a decoy

Naomi Thriepland, 25, used little Aiesha as a prop when she brought back a £170,000 stash of drugs hidden in the hood of her black BMW convertible.

Thriepland had served with distinction in Iraq and Afghanistan as a lance corporal in a bomb disposal unit attached to the Grenadier Guards.

But Canterbury Crown Court heard she left her job as an Army clerk to train as a beautician, claiming she wanted more time with her daughter.

You did what you did for financial gain. More than that, you took your seven-year-old child with you as some kind of family cover, putting that child at risk

Judge Heather Norton

In fact, the hearing was told, Thriepland put the youngster at risk when she was paid £8,000 to smuggle 3.5kg of heroin into the country from Holland.

She was caught at the entrance to the Channel Tunnel in Coquelles, France, in December 2011.

Jailing her for four years, Judge Heather Norton told Thriepland, who is now pregnant: “You did what you did for financial gain. More than that, you took your seven-year-old child with you as some kind of family cover, putting that child at risk.

“You claim you became a courier to give her a better life but that child is now likely to suffer more than you.

“You have served this country with a number of tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and in perilous positions – so this was certainly out of character.”

Thriepland, of Dalton-In-Furness, Cumbria, had admitted drug smuggling at an earlier hearing. Mary Jaqcobson, prosecuting, told the court: “She had her seven-year-old-daughter with her.

She said she had been to Disneyland Paris and that it was a hire car.

“When the car was searched officers found in the car’s roof 3.441kg of heroin and 11.9kg of cutting agents of caffeine and paracetamol. The street value for the drugs was £172,000.”

Thriepland picked the drugs up at a hotel in Amsterdam before driving back to Britain through France.

Investigators found she had £10,500 transferred into a bank account despite claiming she earned just £7 an hour for a 15-hour week.

Thriepland had been in the Army for six years and had also done tours of the war zones as part of the medical corps.

Her mother Fiona Thriepland, 53, who cared for Aiesha while her daughter served overseas, raised more than £600 for Army charity Help for Heroes.

In 2009, Aiesha, then five, wept on television as she spoke to her mother during a satellite link-up at Christmas.

Christopher Baur, defending, said Thriepland had not acted in “malice or wickedness but rather stupidity and with an element of greed”.